The Bear Family: Nonny and Benny Go Apple Picking

Hello, do you know how high trees are? How am I supposed to reach apples? Last I checked, climbing trees wasn’t my most successful sport

Monday, September 18, 2017

B enny is a man of many ideas. Not all of his ideas are good, but he likes to share all of them anyway and he’s always enthusiastic about it.

“Nonny! We’re going apple picking for Rosh Hashanah!” he said to me one morning at breakfast. To be honest, I was still half-asleep. Still. I realized right away there were a few issues with his idea. Here’s a list of them that I shared with Benny. 1)

Apple picking? Where? 2)

Isn’t it easier to get apples at the grocery store? 3)

Hello, do you know how high trees are? How exactly am I supposed to reach apples? Last I checked, climbing trees wasn’t my most successful sport. 4)

How exactly is T.J. going to maneuver between the trees? 5)

Have I mentioned there’s a grocery store down the block that sells apples?

“I have it all figured out,” Benny said. “I found a wheelchair-accessible apple-picking orchard. The Jonathan apples are hanging really low.”

“Wise guy,” Benny said. “Jonathan apples are a type of apple. They’re delicious and they’ll enhance our Rosh Hashanah table. I have to tell you, brother of mine, that you haven’t tasted an apple if you haven’t eaten a fresh-picked apple. They’re divine. You can’t compare them to the grocery store’s selection.”

“Okay,” I said. “I get that they’re yummy. You still haven’t addressed all the other issues.”

“No ladders,” he said. “And I’ll push T.J. if it gets hard. Not only that, but they have an awesome hayride that you can go on and it’s wheelchair accessible too. You have to book it 48 hours in advance but no worries, I already took care of it!”

Well, Benny always thinks of everything. I have to admit I was excited by the idea of a hayride. I like farmy types of things. They make me feel all outdoorsy and since I don’t get next to enough outdoor exercise, I was excited.

“Ima already agreed to drive us there and Abba will pick us up,” Benny said.

Well, that settled it. I was looking forward to picking apples for our Rosh Hashanah table. Maybe the extra delicious apples would promise us a sweet new year.

Later that night, I heard Benny talking on the phone to his friend, Lazer.

“I arranged the most awesome trip for me and Nonny,” he said. “There’s this wheelchair-accessible apple orchard with a handicap-accessible hayride….” He droned on and on. I know he meant well, truly. But I kind of wanted to sock him, or at least stick a sock in his mouth. He made it sound like he was bringing along his disabled brother on some sort of disabled trip. Which, let’s call an apple an apple, that’s exactly what he was doing. But I didn’t need him to talk about it that way. I heard him speak to like, five people, all excited about all the accessible stuff he’d found. Why couldn’t he just tell them he was going apple picking with his brother? (Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 678)